Forged in Blood
by Drakozozh
Summary: XD001 was intended to be unpurifiable. This time, CIPHER succeeded. Now, with a greater evil on the horizon, both of the men who defeated CIPHER will need all their strength...and the strength of a shadow...
1. Chapter 1 Prelude to Death

The desert sands crunched under the single wheel of the oddly-constructed, but massive and powerful motorcycle. On it rode a man of about twenty-five. Spiky white hair fluttered in the wind, and under his eyes were two white tribal stripes. Behind him flapped a long blue-ish coat, and at his hip was a belt of six red and white balls.

Balazar walked past the ruins of the ancient Orre Colosseum. Constructed by the Seven Tribes almost a thousand years ago, the ruins still held contests for the strongest trainers in Orre. Somehow it had survived the desertification, and the collapse of the government, more than the old town of Pyrite.

The region of Orre had once been a tropical paradise. Hundreds of Pokemon had lived there, and there was hardly any crime or war. The government made sure of that, building huge Colosseums in the capital of Pyrite and the outlying cities of Phenac and Realgemea. There the disputes were settled with high-stakes Pokemon battles.

But the nation had over-taxed itself. The factories and power plants that fueled the expansion eventually turned the air black and the forests died out, lush green turning to the dun of sand. The Pokemon fled, most dying out. Only a few species made it across the Tractless Sea that separated Orre from the rest of the world.

Without any power, the government collapsed. The cities took control of themselves, and while they generally kept to themselves in peace, they did have spats of violence occasionally. What few remaining Pokemon became the friends of trainers, and were put to difficult, dangerous double battles.

Pyrite, once the capital, slid into disrepair. The Colosseum started breaking apart, and the populace left it, having no funds to rebuild. From this power vacuum, CIPHER emerged.

CIPHER was a group that was actually founded by the remnants of the old nation. They wanted their power back, and they would not stop at anything. One of their plans was the SHADOW Pokemon.

SHADOWs were Pokemon whose hearts, the link to the cosmic vibrations around them, had been closed off from that vibration. They were filled with hatred and pain, and this drove them to fight with a fury unmatched, especially to any non-SHADOWs. CIPHER had been beaten back, driven to its knees five years prior, by the man whose boots now touched the far edges of the Orre region.

- His coat was tattered at the edge where the dust and wind and sand had eaten away at it. His goggles were in a state of disrepair; one of the lenses had broken, and the other was cracked at one side. He was a broken man; they had his wife, his little son, and they had promised him that they would not put a second thought into slitting their throats if he didn't obey. Not many people outside of Snagem had the bikes they rode, and not many had the kind of mobility that racing over the desert on one. At his hip were the same six balls, but the red paint had been scoured away, and the spheres were dented and dinged. Strapped to his back, however, was the most strange, macabre, and disturbing thing most had seen.

In a large, slightly blue tinted, liquid-filled container was a large, six-chambered, still-beating heart. It thumped up against the sides rhythmically, sound ever reminding the man of his ultimatum: deliver XD001's heart to Outrim Station, then leave Orre in the Deathly Desert and never return. His wife and son would never be released, but they would live their lives in comfort. And he would be an exile, never to return to his home, not even in death.

They had wanted to remove XD001's heart and destroy it, forever ending any hope of purifying it and releasing it from CIPHER. However, to destroy the heart was to end any of the beast's power; they stemmed from the connection to the vibration of the cosmos. To have the power of the beast's psychic mind, the heart would have to stay.

After it had been surgically removed, it was replaced by an advanced machine that kept pace with the monster's exertions, much like a regular heart. The real, biological heart was to be kept alive in Outrim Station, an unknown place in the desert used to test CIPHER's weapons and artillery crews. There it would stay forever, beating in a slow, regular, unchanging pace for eternity… The man's name was Wesley.

- Balazar took off the belt that held his Pokeballs and looked at the purple one specifically. Inside this Master Ball rested the monster Greevil had created: XD001, SHADOW Lugia. The great sea Pokemon had been twisted, forced to do evil for the evil organization. He shook the little ball around in his palm, tilting it between fingers, until he finally came to a decision. He donned his gear and stepped out of the lab into the courtyard.

He took out the little ball and pressed the tiny button in the center. Instantly the ball shook, then the top half sprung open as a beam of blue-white energy sizzled out, and then materialized into the legendary Pokemon Lugia. Except this…monster…wasn't Lugia.

Instead of the holy blue and white, this Lugia was a purple and a light grey, with spiky claws and bladed eye-ridges. And instead of sea blue, soft eyes, these eyes burned red, indescribable hatred of the world, and especially of him. Balazar, however, held his ground under that stare, and then rushed the Pokemon before it could do anything to counter.

- I came out of the poorly simulated digital universe of the Ball and materialized back into the Real universe. Now I could feel the wind on my skin, the ruffle of the breeze slide over my hide.

Then I noticed the…human…at my feet. I glared at the scum. His kind had taken everything from me! My memories, my Nest, my compassion, my soul…even my heart! They had literally ripped my body apart and ripped out my still-beating heart, then replaced it with their foul machine. Even now I felt the thing trying to keep up with the hormones my hatred-addled brain was sending.

Then the boy embraced me. I looked down in shock. What human had embraced me since….? When was the last time I was embraced? Who was I?

I felt the tears run on my skin. The boy was crying, but for whom? Certainly it couldn't...could it be? Was he actually crying for me?

I tried to speak to him, but the tampering with my Being had made it impossible, no matter how hard I tried. Infuriated, I let out a roar, and then looked at the human to see how he reacted. He had jumped, but otherwise still stayed attached to me.

I had no patience for this lovey-dovey bullshit. I picked him up with my psychic powers, lifted him a few feet, and then dropped him. He hit the ground with a dusty thump, and then I turned away. I tried to hide the long, jagged scar on the left side of my ribcage.

- Balazar groaned as he stood up. The SHADOW Lugia had rejected him, and now sat, hunched over, in a corner of the courtyard, in the darkest shade. "Shit…" he muttered.

But something was wrong. In the moment before he had hit the ground, he had noticed a long white scar on the Lugia's ribcage….right over where the heart would be.

He took out another Ball, and let out his Umbreon. He told her to try to get close to the SHADOW Lugia, and then left the matter in her capable paws. He went to go look for Professor Krane.

- Outrim Station was a hunkered down, wind-scoured building that was carved into the side of the sandstone pillars that were unique to Orre, and marked its border. He cut the engine on his bike and heaved the heavy cylinder with him to the door. He keyed in the code, but the door never opened. All it did was grind and squeal in its tracks.

He unstrapped the cylinder's pack and placed it gently on the ground. Then Wesley turned and faced the door. What he didn't notice was the tiny trickle of water that had seeped from a broken external cistern pipe. The water made contact with the cylinder, and the heart inside immediately began to pump a little harder. Not enough to be of major importance, but enough to carry out its intended task. Even an organ of a psychic had some small power.

While this phenomenon occurred behind him, Wesley faced the door. He leaned back, and with a hoarse roar, kicked his thick-soled boot into the door. It snapped off of its tracks and toppled inwards. He entered slowly, and pulled out his flashlight. Flicking it on, he saw walls splattered with blood, blood everywhere. Bodies were piled in the center of the room, with one tied to the main table. In the man's chest, an insignia that Wesley wasn't familiar with was carved, brutally and bloodily. Furniture was shattered, and the lights now started to flicker.

He turned to leave, and was met by a man who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He swung a large club at Wes, who ducked and snapped a finger stab to the man's ribs. He went down, struggling to breathe.

Wes rushed out to see another bike race away, this one with a familiar canister lashed to the back wheel. "No!" Wes screamed. That was his wife and son's only lifeline. He leapt on his bike, fired it up, and charged off in hot pursuit.


	2. Chapter 2 Convergence

- I immediately felt the signal. It was of me, but not of me now. It was laced with a different psychic tag, and while it was so close to mine that it would have easily been confused, I knew that this was what I thought it was. My heart had sent a signal back to its body.

I dredged up the map of this forsaken region that CIPHER had branded in my brain, and immediately knew that my heart was resting just outside a small outpost that CIPHER used for artillery testing called Outrim Station.

I prepared for flight, and leapt up, spreading my wingarms. I heard the filthy little dark-type shout out, but her cries were unintelligible. Or not worth my time. Soon, I almost cleared the research facility.

- Balazar heard his Lasciel's cry when he was tooling his hoverbike up. In the year since he had beaten CIPHER's second attempt at world domination, he had become quite the mechanic.

He rushed to see Shadow Lugia trying to escape. With a hiss, he raced around the corner and took the stairs two at time, trying to beat his charge to the roof. He took out Lasciel's pokeball and recalled her as he passed a balcony. Finally, he erupted from the roof, and just in time. Lugia was there, and just clearing the roofline. He jumped, reaching for his pokemon's tail.

- I cleared the roofline, and was about to make a break for it, when I was suddenly unbalanced. Something had latched onto my tail, which served as a rudder in flight as well as in water. I looked back, and saw that the little human was hanging onto one of my tailspikes, one of my steering necessities. As much as I thought about it, I couldn't bring myself to throw him to his death. He was strong, and even without a heart, I respected strength. I flipped my tail up, and he, startled, flew over my hips and onto the juncture of my shoulder blades and neck. Of course, I couldn't let him stay there forever, but the whelp could ride for a short while. His little stunt had earned him that, however grudgingly.

- Wes's knuckles under the gloves were white. He gripped the steering handles and throttle with merciless force, always barely keeping the other bike in sight. He couldn't risk using his little hand crossbow, as it might damage the heart, but he couldn't let it escape. So he made do with chasing the bastards down. Not even a Western Citadel built bike could outlast his cobbled-together, but strong and efficient bike. Eventually they would have to stop for food and water, or gas. And then he would be there, and there would be no mercy.

Ahead of the chase, an ominous cloud of sand and dust whipped up. The two men who had massacred Outrim Station and stolen the heart seemed to have no intention of stopping and waiting the storm out, so neither did Wes. He simply flicked his head down, then with one hand adjusted the set of the battered goggles. Then he gunned the engine, and dove into the storm.

Even with the goggles, it was nearly impossible to see anything. He whipped his head about, trying to see through biting sand and cracked lens panes. For a half an hour, he rode straight ahead, not stopping, not turning. But when the storm finally cleared, dismay struck him. There was no sign of either the riders, or the heart. Wait…

Protruding from an oddly black heap of sand was a bike wheel. A trail that looked like a man had dragged himself away led aways off, and Wes could see the man, trudging with a noticeable limp.

He raced over the sand, drawing his crossbow and cocking it. When in range, he aimed the bow and pulled the trigger.

A broadhead, short quarrel whistled away from the bow, spinning for accuracy. Then, with a squelch-thud!, it embedded itself in the target's thigh, dropping him. He writhed shortly, gripping the quarrel and moaning. Wes reloaded the weapon, then folded it into its holster shape. When drawn, it would snap into firing position.

He walked over, knelt by the man, and grabbed the quarrel. What he was about to do made him squeamish, to the point of nausea. He asked, harshly, not lifting his goggles, "Where is the heart?"

No answer. In response, Wes twisted the quarrel a quarter turn, trying desperately to block out the screams. Then he stopped and asked again. When he still got no answer, he twisted the arrow and pulled, slowly. The serrated edges ripped at the flesh, tearing and slicing excruciatingly. Finally, broken to a sobbing shell, the man pointed in the proper direction. Then, he said, "The Scourged God will not let this go unpunished,"

In reply, Wes drew the crossbow, and listened to it crack! back into firing shape. He put another quarrel in the man's throat, then ripped his two arrows out, cleaned them as best he could, and fitted them back into his hidden ammo quiver. Then he hopped back on his bike, and roared off into the direction the dead man had told him.

- On the back of the battered, old bike, the heart container jounced madly until it rammed against a canteen strapped to the rider's hip. Water splashed lightly against the glass, and again, the heart beat harder and faster for a few seconds.

- I touched down at Outrim Station and roughly hurled the human to the sand. Then I wrenched the roof of the station off.

Blood was drying everywhere, and bodies lay piled about. A cistern pipe had shattered and water leaked everywhere. But there was no sign of my heart. In a rage, I fired off a beam of shadow energy that blasted a new crater in the desert wasteland.

- Balazar clambered to his feet after Shadow Lugia had blasted a whole series of glass-rimmed craters in the desert. The beast was flailing about in rage, and soon the madness-filled eyes turned on him. With a scream, the monster hurled another beam of shadow power from its mouth at him. At a range of six meters, there was no hope for Balazar to dodge.

So he didn't. He reached out with his mind and bent the beam, roaring as the power drained away from his own body. Finally, the beam sailed off into the distance.

- I was astounded, so much so that it snapped me out of my rage. This human was a _mind-breaker_, or what the puny human insects called a psychic! And a very powerful one, if not trained in the power whatsoever. With enough power to bend a shadow beam like the one I had thrown, the human could very well break into my mind and ravage it. Of course, I couldn't stop it if I wanted. I had lost all my mind-breaking powers after I had lost my heart.

Then I felt it. That psychic signal, that tag that was mine. I looked at the human, and despite my worst judgment, decided that it would be safer in the long run to have this human allied with me than against me. I grabbed him by the collar, and flipped him over my neck to slide to my shoulders. This was wrong, humans should die, die, die, die….

But I needed my heart. I needed what it gave me, I needed that second chance, needed to _see my mate and litter_ again. As little as I could remember, with pure shadow in my blood and in my brain, I remembered that that was the primary objective.

Without further internal conflict, I launched myself, chasing after the last broadcasted tag.

- Wes screamed. Screamed at the top of his lungs, screamed in rage and anguish. The heart was lost, and so were his wife and children. He fell to his knees, coat splayed out behind him, hands hanging loosely in front of him. His original, prototype SNAG gauntlet, battered and overworked as it was, still graced his right arm.

There was a shadow suddenly overhead, and he snapped to his feet. A huge, obviously SHADOW flying type was touching down right behind him, and from its shoulders, a boy with spiky brown hair dropped to the sand.

Immediately Wes aimed the Snag machine at the SHADOW. As much as CIPHER had him, he could still wrest this Pokemon away from a terrible fate.

However, just as he readied a Ball in the Snag machine's launcher, he noticed the boy had an almost entirely steel arm, with a glowing cord attaching the gauntlet to the shoulder pad. And in that gauntlet there was a Pokeball.

- Balazar knew that the battered, odd-looking thing on the other man's arm was a Snag machine, although he couldn't tell who made it. Perhaps it was the one that Professor Krane had built his off of. But if that Snag machine was the original, prototype machine, then this man must be…

- The humans were entirely shocked, but I wasn't. Almost immediately I could smell the pheromonal relationship. However, what intrigued me more was the psychic residue left on the man we had encountered. He reeked…of me. I could tell he was the man CIPHER had entrusted with my heart.

I was incensed. This man was the cause of all my misery, and I was going to make him pay. Already I could feel the shadow feeding off of my hatred and fuelling another Shadow blast.

- Balazar stared at the man, then got a premonition of evil. He turned to see SHADOW Lugia aiming a ball of Shadow energy at the man they had found, who was at an impasse with them. The blast would kill both of them, so Balazar did the only thing he could.

He reached out and punched upwards, imagining Lugia's head being struck upwards. With that thought, his psychic powers manifested.

- I was going to kill him! Kill, kill, kill, blood, death, murder, HATE! Just as I was about to release the hold on the energy, though, I felt something slam into my jaw. Hard. So hard, in fact, my head snapped up, and I fired the ball skyward.

I read the psychic energy, and saw that the human who had caught me was the culprit. It reminded me how powerful the whelp was. I then noticed something. In my surprise at getting psychically punched, I had splayed my wingarms for balance. Completely exposing my ribcage. Completely exposing…my scar.

- Wes was incensed now. "What have you done to that poor thing?" he roared, whipping up his hand-crossbow.

"Nothing! I saved it from slavery!" the young man's eyes flashed as he pulled out a small Ball. From it emerged an Umbreon, whose terrifying eyes glowed a horrible red.

In response, Wes sent out his Espeon. The two Pokemon stared at each other, Espeon clearly revolted by the dark type, then turned.

_Wes, this trainer is speaking the truth. SHADOW Lugia was this way when Balazar broke CIPHER's back on Citadark Isle. We are in the wrong, _Espeon told him.

Wes now knew it. Balazar gave it away. _This…is my son? When did he get to be so tall? And what did he mean, he broke CIPHER's back?_

- Balazar glared at the man, when Lasciel turned. She looked at the sand, then back at him. He knew this meant she wanted to tell him something.

Burned into the sand was the message, "Balazar, this is Wes. He was forced by CIPHER to take SHADOW Lugia's heart to Outrim Station, but it was stolen by men who claimed to be under the power of someone called the 'Scourged God'. Whatever that means."

_This is my father? Where has he been the last five years? And what did he mean, he was forced to take Lugia's heart out here?_


	3. Chapter 3 Mentalities

- The two humans glared at each other, before the bigger one said something to my human. Wait, MY human? When did I start calling him MY human? Was the shadow's hold on me lessening? Was I breaking free without my heart?

These thoughts, hope I hadn't felt in so long, kept the madness of shadow at bay whilst I pondered them. I curled up on the rapidly cooling sand, readying myself to fight the nightmares as the desert sun finally started to go down.

- Balazar continued to glare at Wes. If this man truly was his father, then where had he been? Why had he let his mother, him, and his sister languish in not knowing?

When the sun started to go down, SHADOW Lugia curled up, tail near head, and looked, for the first time, at peace. Turning, he spat at Wes, "If you'll excuse me, I have a camp to pitch." And with that, he disengaged from the impasse that had lasted much of the evening. Umbreon followed, but only after telling Wes's Espeon something even he couldn't pick out.

- Wes watched as his son left, leaning up against the SHADOW pokemon much like he had done when he had been purifying SHADOWs. In the boy, almost a young man, he saw himself. He watched that Umbreon closely; it had spoken with his Espeon, and Umbreon/Espeon relations were at best tenuous, at worst all-out wars of annihilation. He sat down in the sand, using his bike to make a lean-to. Flash floods always happened in deserts, and he would not like to get caught in one of those. Especially when asleep.

Espeon strutted over to him, and in his mind, said, _Wes. Lasciel says that Balazar blames you for all the pain his mother has been through. Now, I don't know as much about human relationships as much as, say, a human, but I'd say this makes it hard for us, no?_

"Yes. At least he's a purifier. Did you happen to see what was on his team?"

_Well, his starter is Lasciel, the Umbreon. Among his team, there is only one SHADOW, the Lugia. The others are an Ursaring, a Salamence, a Delcatty, and an Ampharos. I'd daresay they'd make a match for our team._

"Well, I hope it doesn't come to that. What kind of psychic energy do you get from the Lugia?"

_It has lost it mind-breaking powers. All of the powers it has have been converted into Shadow powers. And the greatest thing is that…it truly is unpurifyable. It no longer has an organic heart. I take it that the heart you were transporting is Lugia's heart?_

"They only told me a designation: XD001. However, I'd assume that that meant Lugia," Wes replied.

_Then it is imperative we retrieve that heart. I truly don't believe you know the true power Lugia has. Lugia is the God of the Seas. He maintains the ocean currents throughout the world._

"Aren't there multiple Lugia in the world, though?"

_Yes, but this Lugia is the original. He has more power than you can conceive in an organic body. We need to get that heart back._

"Do you know anything of a 'Scourged God'?"

Espeon recoiled visibly at the mention. _Where have you heard that myth? _

"The men who took the heart claimed the Scourged God wouldn't let me go unpunished," Wes replied.

_The Scourged God is…a pokemon's worst nightmare. He is the darkness hiding behind every one of our stories, lurking in our history like a bloodied knife. It would be wise to keep this knowledge a secret until you are ready. _Espeon replied. He closed the link, curling up and going to sleep.

- Balazar leaned up against the SHADOW Lugia, thinking about what he was going to do. With a tap, he got the pokemon's attention. "Lugia, may I…look into your mind? I only wish to understand you better," he asked.

- I was annoyed, then astounded. This untrained mind-breaker wanted to reach into my mind? The damage he'd do to my psyche…but then again, the shadows writhing in my mind had done enough damage. I rolled my eyes at him, then stared, waiting.

- Balazar took the stare as a yes, and then extended his thoughts. It had taken him years to control the odd ability; for the first ten years of his life, he had been tortured by the random thoughts and images in the minds of all who surrounded him. Eventually, he could limit his forays to a single mind, then close himself off entirely. He had always been able to manipulate the world around him, but kept that a very closely guarded secret.

Now he was about to delve into the belly of the beast. As he made contact, he very nearly collapsed. was all he could understand in the swirling mass of shadow and darkness.

He staggered, then shoved in harder. He would NOT be defeated by these shadows!

- I shrieked as the pain hit. The shadows coalesced on one point in my mental defense, painful as they attempted to keep my mind endarkened. Still, they were forced back, the pain only sharper. Behind the shadows, I could dimly _see _a brightening. Finally, the shadows broke as a lance of light shattered the wall.

Balazar's mind was like a sun, a ball of fusion that scorched away the shadow wall around my mind, laying bare every thought to his vision.

- Lugia's mind was a scarred, shrunken place. Around it swirled and writhed a mass of shadows that penetrated the mind in several places.

Balazar immediately began searching for memories, until he found the one he was looking for. He dove in, both eager, and dread-filled.

*** I was strapped to the table tightly. I could barely move my head, and frantically I tried to remember who I was. All I could feel was pain, and I soon saw this was because of the lines stabbed into my wingarms. Pumping slowly into my body was a thick, viscous goo that swirled in a mixture of purple, red, and black.

With a loud whir, I heard something start to spin. The whir changed a few seconds later, but I was too preoccupied to hear it. A saw had descended onto my chest, hacking through skin, muscle, and bone as they dug deeper and deeper to my heart. Blood sprayed over my face, neck, and over the beings that performed the horrible surgery. The last thing I saw before finally, thankfully, passing out was my heart being lifted from its cavity, still pumping.

- Balazar now screamed. The shadows had regained their power, and were stabbing _him _in the mind, trying to force him out. He couldn't get his own defenses up in time; a blast from the shadows knocked him flying back into his own head, then knocked him out.

- I stared at the boy once he returned back to his own mind. In my mind, I could feel different; the boy had lessened the grip of the shadows on me. I felt better, more sane, than…as long as I could remember. New emotions, emotions that I had lost, came back to me. I felt…pity…for the boy propped up against my side, bleeding from the nose and ears, new strength flowing into my body…wait, the boy! He had suffered a major mind-breaking wave! I almost went into his mind to fix the damage done to his brain, but the shadows stopped me. Humans had done this to me, and he would pay. They all would pay; I would WIPE THEM FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!

- Wes watched his son as he said something to the SHADOW. Before he had left, he had asked that horrid, short man what "SHADOW" stood for; it was obviously an acronym.

Greevil had told him it stood for "**S**pecial-**H**elicase **A**dvanced **D**estructive **W**eapon". It made him irate, to have pokemon called weapons, but he had been able to do little but imagine himself throttling the little bastard.

But then he saw Balazar's head snap back, then fall limply against the SHADOW. In the SHADOW's eyes, he saw a change in them, brief, but significant. Maybe Espeon was wrong; maybe they could purify the Lugia.

His thoughts fled him after he saw the blood leaking from Balazar's nose and ears. Without a thought he scrambled up and raced to his son's side, shaking his shoulder's lightly and screaming for him to wake up. The Umbreon next to him was trembling; why, he couldn't tell. Perhaps it was because she felt the same shock as her master.

Espeon bounded up behind him and screamed, _Get away from the boy, you'll only hurt him more!_

"What's wrong with him?" Wes asked, barely keeping himself in check.

_He's suffered an extremely powerful psychic blast. It has damaged his brain, and if a powerful psychic doesn't repair the damage soon, he will either die, or become brain-dead. Do you understand?_ Espeon hissed.

"Yes," Wes forced his panic under control.

_Then you must realize that I can only hold him together for so long. Eventually I will give out, and he will fall._

"How long can you give him?"

_About two days maximum, but it is likely that I will collapse myself sooner. I will send out a psychic distress call. _

"No! If CIPHER finds out, they'll kill Rui!" Wes protested.

_Do you think CIPHER has any power over her? They certainly didn't have your son._

"…alright. Send out the call,"

_I will. You will need to hold me up and feed me while I am in the boy's mind; I will be catatonic during the time._

- The robed traveler looked up when he felt the scream. It was the call of an Espeon, if he wasn't mistaken, and a powerful one at that. Why it needed help was beyond him, but it was intriguing nonetheless. He launched himself skyward, propelling himself by what was obviously psychic energy. All that a Sandslash nearby saw was the glimmer of two hard, feline, purple eyes.


	4. Chapter 4 Pure Hatred

- Espeon collapsed in his arms as his eyes lit up in a bright red. That was the indicator that his powers were at work; it also meant that the clock was ticking down. Wes looked down at the boy that was his son, and a smile came to his eyes. He remembered when the boy was only five years old, curling up to sleep on his rather narrow chest.

Wes had never been the paragon of manliness. Ever since his days of being gutterscum, he had always been thin and wiry. Yes, he was tall, and strong for his frame, but when up against a Bodybuilder, his best bet was to retreat and outsmart the lout. It seemed that the boy had taken after his reformed father.

Wes's days with Snagem were days he wished he could forget. He had started out willingly, eager to escape the gutters and make a little cash for himself. But he had always had a soft spot for pokemon, and the horrors he stumbled upon in the SHADOW lab had put the last nail in the coffin. Wes had fled, and decided that he would take away Snagem's power.

He had been the best Snagger on the Team. However, instead of using brute force like all the other grunts, he had designed a Snag Machine that could transfer ownership of a pokemon forcefully. When the factory had finally finished fine-tuning, Wes became the best Snagger. When Wes had stolen the Snag Machine and set off the explosives in the Snagem base of operations, the team had been irrevocably crippled.

He turned his attention back to Balazar, noting that the Snag Machine that covered the boys arm was of a sleeker, smoother design than his. Krane, one of Rui's old friends, must have finally figured out how to build his own Snag Machine.

- Espeon screamed mentally. Holding together the neurons in this child's brain was like holding two freight trains apart, while sandwiched in the middle. That shadow wave had ripped through the boy's mind, shattered connections and splayed memories. Those were the greatest threat to him; the memories that flitted across the mindscape kept trying to distract him, plunging him into scenes of the boy's own life.

Very faintly, he felt another psychic presence, one that wasn't the boy. Although the boy's power staggered him (he hadn't _ever _seen a pokemon, let alone a human, with this much raw power), this presence was unfathomable. Deep, strong, and immeasurably vast, this psyche could no doubt heal the boy. And it was nearing.

- The robed traveler saw the huge Lugia lying unconcerned in the sand, and immediately knew that something was very wrong. He lowered himself to the sand, then walked up to the little gathering. _What is wrong, that an Espeon of your power would need my assistance? _He asked to the pokemon in the human's arms. There was no response. Now he could see why; the Espeon was inside the second human's mind, holding his brain together. Something terrible had ripped across it. _I see, now. Even you do not have enough power to fix his mind._

"Who are you? Can you help my son?"

_I cannot in good conscience heal a human who has harmed Lugia in the way he has. I am sorry, but the boy must die for his crimes._

"He has committed no crime! If anything, he is solving the problem! He is trying to restore Lugia to his original power, his original state. No, he has committed no crime…I have. Look into my mind, psychic, and see for yourself," the coated human protested to the traveler's back.

_There is no need for that. Remove your Espeon; I will see what I can do. However, I cannot do such a thing without a price._

"What do you want?"

_I will state that afterwards. Move, now!_

The traveler knelt next to the boy, after quickly performing the obeisance rite to Lugia. Then, he reached out with one hand and lightly rested it on the human's forehead.

- I almost immediately recognized the newcomer. No amount of robes or wrappings could cover his gait, or conceal the quality of his voice. But I knew that he could heal the boy. I couldn't care less about him, beyond the fact that he could help me get my heart back. The thought of his death pained me for an instant, then the shadows took over and forced my thoughts to hatred.

- The boy's mind had been ravaged. However, the traveler had a soft spot for good humans, and just by looking though the memories and thoughts of this boy, he could tell that he was a good boy. With that thought, he delved deeper into the damaged brain, and began to put things back together. Neurons healed, axons reconnected, myelin regrew… the brain started to rebuild, with his encouragement.

After what the traveler assumed was about an hour, by his internal clock, the boy started to revive. His own mind-breaking powers took over, and when they made contact with the traveler's, the traveler truly saw how powerful the golden psyche was. This boy was no mind-breaker, no…he was more. He was a Psyker. One of the elite, the powerful, the ones to change the world, and rewrite history…But he was utterly untrained. The raw power was only held in check by what the boy had learned himself.

The traveler made his decision. He knew what price he would ask.

- Wes started when the psychic removed his hand, and Balazar thrashed to wakefulness again. His son was safe. Espeon curled up, asleep in his arms, and that was the only thing keeping him from rushing the traveler and embracing him. The traveler turned to him.

_I have decided. My price is that I have the honor of training this new Psyker. He has much raw power; now, he needs to train to effectively control it._

"Can you train with us? We were all going to pursue Lugia's heart."

"What do you mean, Psyker?" Balazar cut in.

- Balazar thrashed awake from one of the worst nightmares he had ever had. When he awoke, there was a robed man standing over him, and he had psychically called him a "psyker". What that was, he had no idea. And the man's touch had been…funny. Like he only had three fingers…three rotund fingers. Without a thought, he lunged for the robes, grabbing them and pulling them off.

He had decided that the hard purple eyes were abnormal, but this…this was unheard of.

Under the robes was no human. It was light purple, almost white, with a darker purple underbelly and tail. The head was supported by a rather thin neck, but also had a second tube attached from the center of its spine to the back of its head. The head itself was very feline, and Balazar decided that this pokemon looked like a combination of Persian, human, and something…else DNA.

Its eyes glowed blue, and he was launched almost thirty feet away. The sand cushioned the blow, but it still jarred him in his newly-revived state. He pushed himself up, and crossed his forearms in front of him to block another psychic blast.

_No human may know of my existence! Psyker or no, you must be punished! _the pokemon roared as he pushed at Balazar harder and harder, each increment forcing him back.

- I watched as the two psychics, both Psykers, forced each other back and forth in the sand. Disinterested, I turned to where the man, Wes, stood, fists clenched in anger.

But I did not interfere. This had nothing to do with me; the strongest Psyker would win, and I would still have a powerful tool to use in retrieving my heart. And almost right on time, I received another twinge from my heart.

- In the squat building, the canister containing the heart was thrown forcefully and carelessly into a dank cell, floor covered in water. In the corner, two pairs of terrified eyes, one crimson, the other a warm topaz, stared at the macabre and nightmarish canister as it beat harder for a second.

- Wes started as the SHADOW rose and stretched out its wingarms and prepped for takeoff. "Hey you two! If you want to be left in the dust, then keep at it!" he shouted at the two dueling psychics as he dashed to his bike, putting Espeon back in his ball and pulling the goggles down. He leapt aboard his bike, hand flicking the ignition and gunning the throttle. With a roar of gasoline-induced fury, the bike awoke and came alive.

He waited, watching the SHADOW for motion.

- Balazar dropped his guard and pumped his arms, driving through the desert sands. He scrambled aboard the SHADOW, clambering up its tail, and then he called back Lasciel, who by now had recovered. With that, the SHADOW leapt from its feet and drove skyward, making a beeline for whatever was attracting it to its heart.

They flew southward, and from the cloud of dust, Wes still followed on his bike.

- Alongside Wes flew the strange creature, staying low to the ground, cloaked in his dust kickup. _I apologize for losing my temper; for so long have I killed any who saw my true form. _It said.

"What are you in the first place?"

_I…I am a creation of man and science. I was created by a barrage of gene splices to an original sample of extracted DNA…Mew. I am the Second Mew. MewTWO. That is my name. I am also a Psyker; that means I have more mind-breaking power than any normal psychic on Earth, excepting the Legendaries._

"Good. When we get to our destination, I want you to crush anything that moves when we're done."

_I planned to._

- For an hour I flew, following the signal. Finally, I saw the building that housed my heart.

It was squat, dun-colored, and painted with runes that I knew where familiar, perhaps in some of my old mythos, but unfamiliar now. I had no idea what they meant. What I did know was that somewhere in that building, my heart rested.

- Balazar directed the SHADOW to land behind a tall rocky ridge that concealed them from unwanted eyes. It wasn't more than a minute before the strange being and Wes arrived as well. "The building is there, but I suspect that there's more underground. It would be consistent with all CIPHER bases I've seen," he said.

"And there's only one entrance, am I right," Wes asked.

Balazar nodded.

"Then we're just going to have to announce our arrival," Wes said, walking back to his bike.

"You, whatever your name is, I want you to get Lugia to recognize my psychic pattern and come when we need to get out. Can you do that?"

_Yes. I will get started now._

Wes had opened the sides of his bike to reveal several grips. Balazar had seen his father's handcrossbow, seen him aim it confidently and competently. Whathe had in the side compartments of his bike was at least four firearms, all wickedly illegal. If there was a law.

Wes drew each of them. Two were submachine guns, both loaded by large drums. The third was a sawed-off shotgun, and the last was a pistol that looked like it chambered a truly huge bullet. After checking them all, he slid them back into their compartments, then closed them. "I'll charge them, and neutralize the guards. Then you come in, and we'll storm the place together," he said, drawing the crossbow and snapping a new quarrel into place.

"I'll get the door open. Those runes…"

Balazar turned to the strange creature. "You look to be a pokemon. What do those runes mean?"

The creature stood stock still for a moment. Then he turned, and said, _I am done. Lugia will respond to your call. As for those runes, they are the sigils of the Scourged God. They also serve to damp the power of powerful psychic pokemon, such as myself. I will be useless when we enter the base._

"Then you'll stay put here, and prepare to give us backup. I don't think that this 'Scourged God' has ever encountered a strong human before. I should be fine. Alright, if we're all ready, then Wes, fire up that bike and go!" Balazar ordered.

- Wes gunned the engine and took out one of the submachine guns, racking it under his arm as he raced over the sand and towards the guards. They never had a chance.

With a wha-wha-wha-wha-whap! the gun barked, and the five guards that were obvious collapsed in bloody sprays. A bullet pinged off of the front of his bike, and he sprayed a few rounds towards where he thought the shot originated. He was rewarded with a splatter of bone, brain, and blood as the six small-caliber rounds struck in rapid succession. He killed the engine and hopped off, pulling out the shotgun and flipping the break open, checking to see that the twelve gauge shells were loaded. He flipped it back closed and slid it into the holster at the small of his back. Then he attached the second, loaded, submachine gun to the magnetic points on his thigh, and waited.

Balazar appeared, rushing through the sand. He stopped, took a breath, and promptly wound back for a punch.

When he actually struck out, the heavy doors bent and dented. Balazar wound up and struck for a second time, and the doors flew inward off their slider rails. Wes immediately dashed in, heavy pistol ready. The dark interior was empty.

- Mewtwo sat in the sand, leaning up against the ridge. His eyes were only on the SHADOW Lugia.

Something was different about this one. It was slimmer, more whipcord, than the Lugia he had once seen at Arceus's Hall. That had been the only time he had been there, to have the god of all pokemon tell him that he wasn't good enough. Mewtwo had left in a rage, feeling shunned and alone. It had been the court's Lugia that had convinced him not to come back and rip the place to shreds, and all within it. It had been that male Lugia who had taught him to fully control his power, that he was indeed a Psyker, and what that meant. It had been Lugia who had supplanted the void in position of his father.

That was why he was so angered and saddened to see this Lugia imprisoned in its own mind, controlled by shadows and mutilated. That was why he had agreed to join the human Psyker's little quest; if not for the Lugia, he would have blanked the older man's memory and taken the boy himself.

Then he saw the incoming cloud of dust. And at the head…

There was a huge, slim car that raced over the sand. And on the black, well-waxed hood of that car, was a red R. Behind it raced a squadron of similarly-blazoned motorbikes, and mixed in with them were bikes nearly identical to Wes's and bike emblazoned with a strange, twisted DNA logo. But the car's logo…he recognized that. "Giovanni…" Mewtwo growled, waves of anger and hatred boiling off of him.

- I burrowed into the sand, creating a small wallow for myself. The Mewtwo next to me rested against the wall, staring at me, and through me. It irked me, but for the first time I managed to control my hatred.

For some reason, all of my thoughts were fixated on the boy. The human. I couldn't get him out of my head, just as I couldn't break free of the shadows in my mind. His psyche had left a piece of itself in my mind, and that was what I fixated on. That golden radiance, the warmth it radiated…no shadow could approach it, and that was where I tried to take refuge. This psyche…I would go to the ends of the earth to protect it. It was the one thing of beauty I saw…everything else twisted into parodies. Even now, the shadows told me that the golden piece was trying to subvert me and enslave me, and I couldn't resist. The shadows started to drag me back into their cold embrace, but I fought one last time. I grabbed that psyche, and held on.

And then I used a loophole in the SHADOW programming. I couldn't disobey a direct order from whomever was my master. Right now that was the human. I couldn't not go in if he needed help.

Mewtwo stood up next to me, and even without my mind-breaking abilities, I could feel the malevolence and hatred burning off of him. My SHADOW-augmented eyes saw his psychic aura; he glowed a brilliant blue, shining in similar radiance to the boy. Mixed in with that radiance were veins of angry crimson, shades of anger and hatred that rivaled my own.

- Balazar was the first to encounter a Scourged One. Tribal paint all over the heavyset man's arms and shoulders, he wielded a large, rusted axe and tried to remove Balazar's head. His intestines were soon splattered all over the wall. Normally, Balazar would have tried for a non-lethal approach, but with his life at stake, and with the fury that burned in him, he took no prisoners. Any opposition he found was quickly and brutally dealt with, ripping men apart with his mind and his gestures.

- Wes's pistol belched fire, and the huge 1.20 cal. bullet flew out at just under 340 meters per second and through a man's torso. His back blew apart in a shower of gore. Wes turned and snapped his other hand down in a neck chop that broke the other assailant's neck. Then he holstered the pistol and readied the shotgun.

- In a dank, misty room with a black ceiling, a form rested in the deepest of black fogs. Up its dias a man dashed, prostrating himself at the deepening of the fog. "My God, intruders have been encountered in your temple. They are ripping through our forces, my God. Should we attempt to stall them further?"

From within the mists, a voice, a voice dripping with pure malice, pure hatred, pure violence, stated, "Let them come. They may join in my holocaust."


	5. Chapter 5 Advent Evil

- Balazar grabbed the last man in the room's head with his mind and made a fist with his outstretched hand. In response, the man's head contorted, face twisted in pain, then his skull broke. Misshapen, Balazar didn't stop until the skin finally ruptured from the pressure and the man's head exploded in a liquid, gelatinous mess.

Wes walked in, checking the room for enemies. When he was sure that they all were dead, he broke open his gun and ejected the spent shotshells. He loaded the sawed-off with two new shells, of a different color, and then stated, "Slugs." Balazar immediately understood.

The two gently pushed open a door, and the dark room behind looked utterly uninhabited. The chairs and table were coated in dust, or so it seemed. Distantly, muffled through the walls, a rocking explosion sounded. "It looks like Mewtwo has found something to kill," Balazar stated calmly, unfazed by the ferocity of the blast.

"It would seem so. Alright, I'll go first. Watch your corners," Wes commanded as he entered the deserted room. They advanced the gamut of three more rooms, before encountering any more resistance.

- It looked like a church hall, but instead of a shrine to Arceus or Mew, the back wall was covered in runes that were painted in fresh blood, runes that spoke to Balazar's mind in sibilant hisses, sickening him. On the altar, a young boy's body was splayed, ripped open by the clawed dagger held in the head priest's hand. He was chanting in some guttural language that neither of the duo understood.

His chant was stopped when his torso erupted in a splatter of gore and bone as a ten-gauge slug ripped through him. Almost immediately after, his body seemed to rip itself in half.

Wes swept back his coat and shoved the shotgun into his back holster, then pulled the submachine gun away from the magnetic attachments. The long stick magazine was then inserted into the receiver, and the first of thirty .45 ACP rounds was chambered. Wes aimed at the stunned assembly and sprayed at them.

- Balazar paid no attention to the chatter of the gun. He, instead, swept a hand across his body, fingers clawed. In response, huge psychic claws swept through his side of the church, ripping several in half. Another tried to lunge at him, but was repulsed when Balazar punched out with a hand, and the man flew back into the wall with enough force to pulverize every bone and leave a man-shaped dent in the steel wall. With systematic brutality, he went about ripping the rest of the men in pieces, scattering them about in hate.

The pair moved on through an important looking door at the back of the altar. When they opened it, they were confronted only by cold, death-gray mists. Steeling himself against the psychic emanations of death from the mist, Balazar led the way.

- Outside, Mewtwo grabbed another one of the odd, one-wheeled bikes and threw it through the rock of the canyon. With his other hand, he summoned up a Shadow Ball, then hurled it at the car itself. With another earth-shattering explosion, the ball of dark energy impacted, and again, the car came away unscathed.

Now Mewtwo realized that the car was armored against his attacks. _Let's see if Giovanni can withstand this! _Mewtwo roared as he grabbed all of the remaining bikes and slammed them into the car with a crunch and scream of metal straining. The ball of fire and steel finally stopped, and the car was no more than a chunk in the piece of steel. _Nothing could have survived that. _Mewtwo said to himself, then turned to rest against the wall again. How wrong he was.

- Giovanni Rocketto, founder and head of the vast criminal organization Team Rocket, clambered out of the wreck that was his, Team Snagem's, and CIPHER's attempts to take that base for various selfish reasons. Of the entire force, it was likely he was the only survivor. And he knew that only one being had that kind of pure power. A creation that he never should have approved; a project he never should have funded. _Mewtwo, _the powerful, former islander thought as he pulled a still-usable bike from the sands and rode away, giving up this time. Mewtwo would live free another day.

- In the room of black mists, Balazar felt an evil presence, so vast and immeasurable, his mind couldn't even conceive of what it might be. What he could tell was that the roof above them, keeping the room black, was thin and exposed. With a gestured heave, he thrust both arms skyward, and blew the roof open. Sunlight streamed in, and it revealed four things.

The first, and most important to the duo, was the canister with the beating heart resting upon an altar on a dias in the center of the room. That was their objective; here it was.

The second and third things were two pokemon, weak and starved-looking, that cowered in the corner, chains and manacles around their arms and wings, holding them close to the ground. They looked unlike anything that Balazar had seen, on blue and larger, with crimson eyes filled with equal measures of hope, abject terror, and pleading. The other was red, with topaz eyes that held nothing but terror. They looked like little jets, and when he saw them, he had no doubt that the blue one was the brother and the red one was the sister.

But the fourth thing was the most fear-inducing. One part of the dias was still wreathed in mist, cold, black mist that radiated hatred. From the mist uncurled six black tendrils, each tipped with a blood-red, bladed claw. And from the mist, a voice emanated. "Ah, my guests. I see you have finally made it through my loyal followers. And just in time to join me in my holocaust. These three beings shall be sacrificed so I may re-enter the world and reshape it in my image, and your eyes shall be the first to be graced with the masterwork of a god. Are you ready?" it said, dripping with malice, such malice that any of the insane, hatred-inducing words of Grand Master Greevil sounded like drivel from a child. Already the black tendrils were winding back for a strike, a strike aimed at Lugia's heart.

Balazar quickly reached out and grabbed the cylinder, pulling it back to him. Just in time, to, as all six tendrils slammed into and through the dias where the cylinder had rested seconds ago. It slammed into the wall, scratching but not breaking the glass. Balazar sent out the psychic signal, then dodged another tendril strike. He reached out and grabbed all of the tendrils, straining his power as it came into contact with the being's might.

- Wes took the opportunity to dash to the two chained pokemon, first the blue one. He shot the chain's eye hook apart, freeing the pokemon from the wall. It levitated away, just as Wes reloaded and aimed at the red one's eye hook.

Just then, one of the tendrils, freed from Balazar's grip as he weakened, snapped out towards Wes's unaware back. As the red claw was about to hit, the blue pokemon leapt between the two, getting clear impaled by the claw. Quickly, his eyes started to dim. Wes shot the other eye hook, freeing the female, who rushed to her brother's aid. Quickly pulling him off of the tendril, which seemed to be sucking _something_ from him, she freed him from the deadly tendril. Immediately blood started to flow, but it seemed…off. Like his blood had been...changed.

- I heard the psychic cry and knew it was the human. Apparently, it was strong enough that Mewtwo heard it as well, for he hopped up and levitated as I took off. Pinpointing the human as just over the ridge, I powered over the rocks and hovered over a small hole in the ground, that was billowing either black mist or filthy black smoke. Mewtwo dropped in to see what was going on.

- The first thing that Mewtwo saw was the older human lying on his back, gripping one of the tendrils and desperately trying to keep it away. The Psyker was holding the other five tendrils, concentration wavering. "GO! Get those two and the heart and get out! I'll be out in a second!" the Psyker grunted. Mewtwo obliged, gripping the heart canister in one grip and the two pokemon in the other. Then he lifted the group up, onto Lugia's back.

- Balazar gathered his strength, then spun and pushed with both hands. The mists disintegrated, and the tendrils blew back. All he saw before he grabbed his father was gray hide, golden armor bands, and hate-filled wine-red eyes, burning into his soul. Then he propelled himself into the air, landing alongside the canister on the SHADOW's back. "We need to get to Agate Village! And fast!" he shouted to the SHADOW, who complied by slamming its wings into the air and propelling the group at almost sonic speeds.

- In the formerly black room, the being known only as the Scourged God chuckled. Not only had he encountered a Psyker, and an extremely young and fury-filled one at that, but he had drained enough power to fully become corporeal in this world, this dimension. His tentacles fused into wings of tattered darkness, and the six spikes along his body thickened and elongated into six thick legs. And his helmet, the golden helmet he was cursed to wear for eternity, morphed into a kind of coronet that graced his head. He was back, and he would consign this world to his own, the Realm of Lost Souls. Then, he could finally not be alone, as he had been cursed by his own father, to be for all time, and beyond.

- Latias whimpered as her brother faded. His blood stained her downy feathers, so much so that she was all red. She had tried to stop the hideous bleeding, and succeeded in that now the blood only trickled out, but she couldn't tell if that was only because he had run out of blood, or that she had actually stopped it. She could only hope that these humans could save him. She trained her eyes on the brown-haired one.

- Balazar turned to see the female's topaz eyes trained on his. He saw into those eyes, those eyes full of fear, and he softened. With a reassuring pat, he rubbed at her neck, then turned away to cover their front quadrants.

- Latias saw compassion in those eyes, the eyes that she had seen before so hard and murderous, so angered and grim. The eyes that had faced the Scourged God and held him for almost a minute, longer than anyone in history. The eyes that were so filled with blood and fire, then soft down and kindness. In him she saw unwavering loyalty, and an unwavering promise: she, and any he found in danger, would be protected. And their attackers would drown in blood.

- The Scourged God laughed when he saw his house of worship filled with the bodies of his dead followers. They had served their purpose; they had made this a place of suffering. There had been a reason he had chosen this ancient outpost for his base; across the world, lines of power resonated deeply within the pokemon deemed by Father Arceus as "gods". This base was situated smack on an intersection of five lines, and those, when turned to places of suffering, granted him immense power. True, he hadn't been able to eliminate one of the gods, or three, but even still, he could work his plan. He just needed to find a Psyker, or a few, who would join him in his fell ritual…


	6. Chapter 6 Miracles

- They dropped the two pokemon off in Agate Village, one of the few areas in Orre to still be lush and verdant. The male was fading fast; they could only hope that the Pokemon Center could heal him. Wes stayed with them, watching as his son went on with the SHADOW and the heart, to the Pokemon Research Station. If anyone had the medical prowess needed to replace Lugia's heart, it would be Professor Krane.

He turned away from the cliffs and reentered the Center's Critical Care Unit. It had been revealed by his old friend Eagun that the two they had picked up were the two Eon Legendaries, Latias and Latios. They were from the far-flung island region of Hoenn, situated in the middle of the Tractless Sea. Evidently some pokemon still _could_ make the trip that long. It also helped that, according to Eagun, this pair could fly at hyper-sonic speeds.

The red one, still stained red by her brother's blood, hovered at his side, as he lay in the bed hooked up to a dozen machines, a rare Chansey waiting at the doorway. The Center's head nurse, a young woman who had loops of pink hair, stood next to him. It had been said that she was a member in a dynastic line of women who were all nurses, all nearly identical, who ran the vast world-wide network of Pokemon Centers. Wes had trouble believing that they all were identical, as something would have had to have gone wrong on the genetic side of things, but at least this nurse looked very similar. "Sir, a moment," the nurse asked.

"Yeah?" Wes asked tiredly.

"Both of these pokemon are in terrible shape, both physically and emotionally. There may not be any laws here, but I swear to Arceus if you've been mistreating these dears I will rip you apart myself!" she hissed, eyes going into a murderous flame.

"No. I have not been mistreating them; in fact, before today, I did not even know of their existence. We freed them from a madman in the far north, who was going to sacrifice them to what he called a 'Scourged God'. The Latios was injured so grievously defending me when I was freeing his sister," Wes answered, mostly-truthfully. He wasn't about to tell Nurse Joy that the Scourged God was a monster of terrifying capability, and that he was a reformed criminal, and that he had run his pokemon through a gamut of danger to help train them. Even if he had run it with them…

"I don't know whether or not to believe you, but I can allow you to stay here for a bit," the nurse said.

- Balazar raced through the halls of the Research Station, hunting for Krane. He found him in a room near the basement, where the Master Ball had been stored for years. "Professor! I need you!" he gasped.

"What is it, Balazar? Why are you so winded?" Krane asked, concerned.

"That Lugia I freed from Citadark, you remembered how you said that if it had a heart, we could purify it? It doesn't," Balazar stated when he regained his breath.

"Then it is hopeless…" Krane murmured, saddened.

"Not yet. I found its heart, and I hope that we can replace it. Can you do that, Professor?"

"For Lugia, yes. Bring the heart and Lugia to the back operating room. You may want to leave; the operation will be a little…messy,"

"No. I will see this myself; I will be there for Lugia," Balazar grunted, firm and uncompromising. Krane looked into his eyes and saw something that told him that this would be the least gory thing Balazar had seen. What could have hardened the boy so escaped him.

- I wallowed in the grassy earth, the plants a new feeling. Used to water, steel, and sand, the blades tickled me, and even as a SHADOW, I found it amusing. Almost as amusing as burning and killing…

The human came out of the building, holding up my heart with his mind, and told me to get up and come with him to the back. As we rounded the corner, I saw a huge operating table prepared under a hydrostatic sterilization field. Part of me rejoiced; I was going to be normal again! The other part recoiled. This had been a similar place to where I had lost my heart. But the promise of freedom was too great. I followed into the chamber, lied down on the table, and spread my wingarms. There were no restraints, and very quickly I felt myself fading from consciousness.

- Balazar watched from outside the field while the Professor warmed up the bone saw. The heart still rested in the canister, but the top was off. With a high-pitched whine, Krane got to work. The Lugia's chest split open, and after almost twenty minute of careful, precise work, Krane had reached the cavity.

The foul machine glowed a wicked purple, fueled in part by a small shard of some crystal. Krane gently cut away the arteries and veins, leaving only the main artery and vein attached, then slowly extracted the machine. For exactly ten minutes, the Lugia survived on the machine still. Then Krane dropped the heart in gently, and sutured up the veins, all the while watching the oxygen readouts and his work. When he was sure of the heart's viability and the suture's strength, he smacked the heart abruptly. With abated breath, Balazar watched as the heart juddered, shivered, and then with a mighty heave, settled into its natural biorhythm. Krane quickly got to sewing up the Lugia, when suddenly the wound abruptly started to seal up itself.

"Thanks, Mewtwo," Balazar quietly murmured to the patch of distorted air next to him. The pokemon stood next to him, watching the procedure.

_I figured we'd need all of Lugia's help. _Mewtwo replied.

"Thanks. Please, when Lugia wakes up could you teleport us back to Agate? I need to check on Wes and those to pokemon we found,"

_You need to learn how to do so yourself. _

"Not yet. I don't think I have the control yet, you said so yourself. Please, just do it."

_Very well. Lugia should be ready in…two hours._

"Professor Krane? I'd like to be the first thing Lugia sees when he wakes up. When do you suppose that'll be?" Balazar asked, now talking to the professor-cum-surgeon.

"He? Balazar, you're sadly wrong there. This Lugia is, in fact, female. The shadow power may have had similar effects as steroids in humans, but I'm surprised you didn't recognize that. Anyway, she'll be awake in about…two hours I'd say. Her psychic abilities healed that wound more soundly than anything I've ever seen; just try to keep her out of too much battle," Krane said.

"All right," Balazar was surprised to hear that. After a full open heart surgery, a complete recovery in two hours? Then again, he was a Psyker, he had led an assault on an underground fortress, and had engaged in combat with something that pokemon regarded as a god, and that if it wasn't a god, it was something of immense age and power. All his conceptions of realism were just thrown through the window.

- Wes leaned up against the wall inside Critical, watching the Latios as he struggled to survive. The tentacle had smashed right through his right lung, deflating most of it and filling the rest with blood. It was the lung that had saved him from bleeding out entirely; most of the blood loss was contained in that lung. Latias, though inexperienced and abjectly terrified, had also helped.

But something else had happened, like when he had been flipped on his back and nearly impaled himself. When he had grabbed the claw, he had felt a fundamental wrongness in that contact, like the claw was a perversion of nature itself. He looked at his gloves; they still were scorched from the contact. Perhaps the reason the wound simply refused to heal was because of that perversion.

His P*DA rang. Balazar was calling him. "Yeah? Is Lugia normal?"

"No, although now we can purify her. How are the other two doing?" Balazar replied.

The female part confused Wes, but he replied, "Not to well. I can't convince Latias, the red one, to move away from her brother, Latios. One of his lungs was punctured, and it is just refusing to heal,"

"We'll be there in two hours. Tell him to hold on that long, hold on for him if you have to. I want him alive when I get there," Balazar ordered. Wes recoiled; he had never expected his own son to give him an order like a leader.

"Sure."

"Alright. Balazar out," Balazar cut the transmission.

He moved forward, kneeling besides the bed and the blood-stained Latias. "Hold on for me, Latios. Please, if not for me, then for your sister," he reached out and gently rubbed the male's arm, squeezing lightly and reassuring him of his existence. The pokemon cracked open his eyes slightly and focused dimly on him and his sister. He smiled weakly, then closed his eyes once more.

Then, blood started to leak from the huge wound. The clotting drug Joy had given him had worn off, and the clots were dissolved. Alarmed, Wes sent Latias for more towels, and when they were brought, steeled himself. Then he plunged his hand into the wound with the towels, soaking his hand to the wrist in blood. He pressed the towel to the sides of the wound, and held it there, exerting as much force as he could. Now all he could do was wait. _Hold on, Latios. Don't die on me!_

- Latias was scared again. Latios had started bleeding again, and the boy wasn't here. Yes, the older one who had similar pheromonal signatures was, but she didn't quite trust him yet. But he was fighting to stop the bleeding, so she softened to him, fetching whatever he needed. Now all they could do was fight the bleeding and wait.

- I woke up still shadowed. It enraged me, and I tried to lash out, but the first thing I saw was the boy. It stopped me. And then I felt the shadows, how they now no longer held such an iron grip in my mind and on my psyche. At last I remembered.

My name still eluded me, but I remembered it meant "graceful combatant" in Ancient. I remembered that I had a mate, Silver, and three young children. I remembered that I lived in the depths of the Tractless Sea, only emerging to help my father as Goddess of the Current. I remembered how to speak.

_Thank you, Balazar, for returning my memories to me, _I told the boy.

"You're welcome. Do you have a name, or shall I call you Lugia?" the human, Balazar, asked.

_I do not remember my name; the shadows still hold that from me. Call me Lugia, but please, stay away if you can. The shadows still hold sway, and I never know when they will take over, _I replied, voice strained as I felt a wave of hatred rising. I fought to control it, but it won. I lashed out, smashing a tree to smithereens. He stood in front of my mouth, holding my muzzle shut, and then murmured calming sayings.

Finally, my sweating rage was soothed, and I settled down. My hatred assuaged, he pulled me back into my ball with a promise to talk later on. I entered the pocket dimension silently, grateful that he was holding me away; I could never forgive myself if I killed him.

- "Mewtwo, we need to go now!" Balazar stated, and Mewtwo flared into visibility. He felt a pulling at his belly, and suddenly they were at Agate Village's Center. They rushed in, Mewtwo ignoring his visibility. He felt the urgency as much as Balazar did. "Nurse! Where are the two pokemon we dropped off?" Balazar hurriedly asked.

"Critical, but the Latios has very little chance…WHAT IS THAT!?" Joy freaked out upon sight of Mewtwo, who waved a hand and silenced her. Balazar and Mewtwo burst into the Critical Unit, to find the blue one lying on the bed, bloodstains leaking around him.

"Back off! Get the towels out!" Balazar ordered. The towels were soon removed, and then Mewtwo's eyes glowed a brilliant blue. The flesh around the wound shuddered, but didn't seal. Mewtwo pushed more power into the healing surge, and still nothing.

Then something happened. A rush of foreign psychic energy flowed through him, a source of raw unguided power. Next to him, Balazar's eyes and hands burned a blinding gold, as energy passed to Mewtwo.

Now he started to seal the wound, reknitting broken tissue and cells. A dangerous job, but a worthwhile one, healing. Finally, the wound sealed over in a circle of scar tissue, and both Mewtwo and Balazar passed out from the extent of their exhaustion.

**Sorry for the short chapters, guys, but thanks for reading. As always, YOUR REVIEWS OR YOUR LIFE! Also, tell me about typos.**


	7. Chapter 7 -- Blood Debts

_Just gotta say that if the ownership of pokemon was catchable, then I can't ever possibly catch 'em all._

Balazar swam through his nightmares, most filled with the image of the beast they had fought back in the desert. The Scourged God. In every vision, he saw the world drowned in the blood of the innocent, populated only by the spirits of the dead. He saw the globe, covered in lines, all of them gray. He saw nothing but swirling runes, all speaking nothing but evil in their intent.

He couldn't tell whether this was to be the future, or the past. He couldn't tell if this was the true future, or a possibility. Only visions of the future were this clear, yet so cryptic.

He thrashed awake to the sound of screaming metal. The entire side of the Center had been ripped open, and behind it, there stood a huge robot. Armed with a hydraulically powered gripping claw that probably came from one of the abandoned factories to the far south, and what looked like a heavy cannon, the mech reached in for the being lying on the bed one over. Mewtwo.

With a blast of force, Balazar knocked the claw into the ceiling, pinning it temporarily. Mewtwo levitated from the bed, eyes already clouded with rage. He crunched the hydraulic lines in the claw, and ripped the hoses free. Black oil sprayed all over Balazar, who had rolled right under the mech. From there, he punched upward with a great blast, ripping the claw arm completely free. Then he shoved the mech out of the room.

Now out in the open, he picked up the arm with his mind and hurled it through the center of the mech's chest. It collapsed, but not before firing a cannon shell as it slammed into the ground.

Balazar knew that he was going to die, and that he could do nothing to stop the shell. He simply couldn't bring the might of his power to bear on the shell. He wasn't fast enough. But he didn't need to be.

With a scream of the sound barrier breaking, the red pokemon slammed into the side of the shell, and grabbed it. She whipped around and, with a scream of fear-induced rage, hurled the shell back at the mech. With a thunderous explosion, the machine exploded, leaving behind a smoking hulk and a deep crater. Mewtwo lowered to the ground, eyes dulling to their normal violet. _Team Rocket would pursue me still…Balazar, the men who tried to kill you are after me. It might be wise for me to go into hiding, and take the pressure off of you. _

"I'd rather you didn't. You'd be throwing yourself to the mightyena, and then who'd train me?"

_True. In any event, Latias, I think, wishes to speak with you._

"So you're Latias. Thanks for saving me," Balazar wrapped the red pokemon's downy neck in a hug, slowly kneading the tensed muscles. She turned her topaz eyes on him. Then she wriggled free and led him to another room. Wes stood, submachine gun out and ready, guarding the still-weak Latios. Latias touched him with one of her claws, and then her eyes shone.

- Latias let the boy into her mind. She had a blood debt to him; she would let him do anything he wanted to her. And she wouldn't stop him. But all the golden psyche did was wait. Curiously, she extended her core to him, as if offering it. He didn't take it. Finally, she spoke. _I have a blood debt to you. Why have you not done with me as you wish?_

_ Because I already have._

At this reply, she was startled. She would have noticed if anything in her mind had changed; memories were hard to truly destroy. _What do you mean? _

_ You are perfect the way you are. Granted, I think you need some proper rest, some peace, and some proper feeding, but I think you are fine. Why do you want me to mold you to be my slave?_

_ Because that is the meaning of the blood debt. When you saved me and my brother, without need, our lives became yours to shape and own._

_ Then my father is in blood debt to your brother. _

_ One in blood debt cannot hold the debt over another. That can only dissolve the blood debt. My brother has no debt; it is mine. Do with me as you will._

_ I already have._

_ But you have done nothing!_

_ Exactly. What would you have me do?_

_ Well…traditionally, in the case of a male holding the debt on a female, he will…force a mating. The blood debt gives me over to you mind…body…and soul. You own all of me, including my…virginity…_

_ No. I…I cannot, and will not, participate in such a barbaric practice! I saved you because it was the right thing to do, not for the prize. If you truly want to give yourself to me, then do it in this way: join me. I will care for you as I would my sister. I will encourage you to greater strength, to greater abilities. I will train you as I would any other pokemon, and I will ensure your safety. That is my demand._

_ Then I have no other recourse. I offer myself to you in the way you have described._

Latias felt him leave her mind, then watched as he pulled out a ball. Then he threw it at her. It hit, and with a whine, excited her particles. With a whoosh she was sucked into the ball, into a pocket dimension, one that was poorly simulated. There came a thunderous boom, like that of the dungeon door, and then suddenly she was hurled out.

"I won't keep you in a ball for too long, Latias. Come on, why don't you meet the rest of my team," her master told her, and obediently she followed. Out of various balls flew a Salamence, an Umbreon, an Ampharos, a Delcatty, and an Ursaring. But the sixth shocked her.

From the last ball erupted the Goddess of the Current. The female Lugia, however, had been corrupted. Her blue and white was gray and purple, and her eyes burned red with suppressed anger, not quite rage. Not yet. But she was still horribly disfigured, a long white scar running down the left side of her sternum. A big scar…

The team swarmed around her, with the rather notable exception of the Goddess. She only asked, "How'd you join?"

"I am in Blood Debt," Latias replied.

The Goddess bowed her head, knowingly.

"I'm sorry to butt in, but we should probably get moving. Those CIPHER goons have some new help," Wes said, already limbering up his little arsenal and moving to his bike, which had somehow managed to teleport itself from the desert here.

"Where do we head?" Balazar asked.

- _I suggest we move to Citadark Isle. _Mewtwo inserted. _CIPHER will least expect you and your team to be at their last base._

"That's a good idea. Wes, you and I will ride on Lugia. Mewtwo, you teleport there and do some recon; I don't want to walk into a trap. Everyone else, back in your balls and ready to fight," Balazar ordered.

Mewtwo warped out, a flash of light the only remainder of his presence there. After whipping through the black, he popped out in the middle of a blackened volcanic isle. The volcano spewed lava down the mountainside, directly into the water, although Mewtwo noticed that it took a detour through a run-down facility perched on a cliff side. No sounds but those of the land echoed here. With another pop he reappeared in the facility, eerily similar to the facility where he had been created. The room he was in was dimly lit, although the doors still had power. He advanced through the corridor, keeping a blast of force ready to meet an unfortunate lurker.

There was no one. Nothing but the scurry of tiny Rattata, likely brought over on accident. Computer terminals stood shut down, gathering dust. The large screen on the wall was shattered, pieces of glass creating a razor-sharp hazard. Flickering lights sent shadows arcing in strange patterns.

In one corner, a man huddled. Mewtwo immediately grabbed the glass shards in his psychic grip, readying a razor-sharp hail. He rocked back and forth, gibbering madly.

Mewtwo had once learned that life was a sacred gift, only rarely forfeit. He had learned that the taking of a life was a great sin, a great burden to bear, and a mark of evil. Then he launched the glass, eyes glowing coldly. For the mad, there was no mercy.

Now he was sure that Citadark Isle was cleansed from its old inhabitants. _Balazar, the island facility is clear,_ he said.

_Good. We'll be there in thirty minutes, we had another small incursion. Keep it abandoned for us, will you?_

- Latias clung to the Goddess's hide, claws as light as she could hold on safely. Her Blooded was an oddity; perhaps this was just due to his being a human. She knew only long years with the human had kept the others from making fun of her for being in Blood Debt to a human, a soft-skin with no ability. But he was a Psyker, a powerful being straight out of legend.

Of course, weren't Psykers supposed to be pokemon? Beings that could control so much energy shouldn't be human, because humans were naturally greedy, power-hungry monsters. Latias still remembered the Great War, which though it was easily a few hundred years ago, her race was extremely long-lived. She was only a newly-hatched Latias when the War broke out, but she still remembered when Alto Mare was lit aflame, when the city burned to the ground and the island shattered and sunk. The great, booming artillery pieces that the humans had used the island as a platform for vaporized under the sound and flash of the last explosion, the one with the huge mushroom-like cloud. To wield such power so aggressively…that was why all Psykers were pokemon. Latias had lost all her family except her brother, and they had fled to "mainland" Hoenn.

But now she was in the company of what was indubitably a Psyker, and what was indubitably a human male. He probably wasn't over the age of fifteen, so he was in the beginning of his breeding age. Latias wondered what he would look like, because she still didn't believe his promise, but she shook the images out of her head.

Another one of those whirring human contraptions strafed past them, and the Psyker's sire sprayed at it with his loud stick-thing, one of the stick-things that had plagued her dreams after Alto Mare.

- Balazar gripped the pilot's heart with his mind, then crushed it. He grasped at his chest, wailing and gasping as the chopper whirled out of control and slammed into a cliff. He was having Lugia ride the waters low, so low that he could reach down and put his hand in the water.

The CIPHER mothership hovered into view, and he grinned savagely as he reached out with his power. The mothership had four huge spinning rotors. If even one of those thing went down, then the entire hovership would be destabilized. He crunched the huge nut at the center of the rotor post, and the blades hurled off.

One of the other choppers finally got close, and the side doors slid back. Four men tried to jump across the gap between the bay and Lugia's neck. Wes took down three of the four before running out of ammunition, and the fourth gripped onto the underside of Lugia's neck. "Turn it around and land, and I won't pull the trig-KLHHHHHHH!" the CIPHER grunt gurgled as a huge rotor blade impaled him, and carved a long, deep furrow across Lugia's chest and lower abdomen. She screamed and curled, hurling the group on her back into the water as she herself splashed under, blood curling away like smoke.

Balazar hurled himself up, then pulled everyone he could see up. Wes was last, coughing and spluttering, before Balazar reached out to Lugia.

_NO! DON'T TOUCH ME, HUMAN! LET ME BE! _Lugia screamed back at him, thrashing in the water as more blood sprayed out into the water.

_You'll bleed out unless you let me pull you out! _Balazar hissed back as he wrapped tendrils of his mind around her.

_NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF ARAHDJKBVNELANJWEIFHOAHATEHA TEHATEHATEKILLBURNBURNDESTRO YDESTROY!_ Lugia's mind degenerated as the shadows took over in her moment of weakness.

Balazar roared as he heaved, launching the wounded Lugia from the water. He dumped her on the grass on her back, then pinned her there. "GO, STITCH HER UP WHILE I HOLD HER!" he screamed as strength born of shadow, born of anathema, boiled up and fought him.

Wes dodged under the flailing tail, spikes razor sharp, fumbling around in his coat for the first aid kit on his belt. When he finally found it, he surveyed the damage.

The wound was, thankfully, shallow and relatively bloodless. However, the Lugia's thrashing and fighting had torn it longer and deeper, and if he didn't get some pressure and some stitching on the wound, the pokemon would bleed out. He slammed himself onto the open wound, face bloodied as he ran the needle through flesh and slowly closed the wound.

- I tried to thrash the human scum off of me in rage. How dare he touch me?! I was a goddess, a legend even amongst the legends, a ruler amongst rulers! Nothing would touch my hide, the hide that my father had said would be blessed and holy!

Then I shuddered as my psyche was penetrated once more by the Psyker's, my savior's. His mind formed a bulwark against the shadows that had been using my once grand pride against me. They had gotten smarter, and I shivered in fear. If the shadows could outsmart and claim me fully once again, I doubted even the Great Father could bring me back.

- Balazar stood his ground, mind both his shield and his sword. The shadows that roiled in Lugia's mind would step no further into her mind. Once more they drove forward, and he braced. The impact jarred him, but his righteous anger and concern for his pokemon succored him. Not again would he suffer, like the ignorant child, the counterblast of shadows. No, indeed, he would be the star and savior of the pokemon that could not defend herself. Finally, he attacked. He could not destroy the shadows, but he could disorganize and disorient them. With sweeping strike of the golden sword, he blazed away all of the shadows.

- Wes tied off the thread that held the Lugia's chest together, and couldn't help but notice that, towards the base of her long neck, below her collarbone and towards the pectorals that were the drivers for flight, he had felt a pair of softer mounds than the toned muscle that made up the rest of her body. He hadn't thought that the species as a whole would need mammary glands, but evidently…

Regardless, he was taken. But his son…

They had made pokemon/human relationships legal, had they not? And they were in Orre. Nobody cared about the law, anyway. It was made by the local warlord, and disobeyed at your own expense.

In any case, trying to set up a relationship would be wrong. He would let it develop on its own, or die off. He squatted down in the water to wash the blood off of his body and out of his coat, and noticed that the wicked slice across his own chest was slowly healing, but healing faster than any human should have a right to. He quietly pulled out his small rum flask and poured the rum into the water, giving it a quick rinse and then collecting as much of the blood as he could from his coat and skin. Maybe it would come in handy later, or at least as a chip for bargaining.

- Balazar slumped against Lugia, exhausted from his foray into her mind. She herself groaned as she felt the boy touch her, but both were too tired to care. Neither noticed that the sky was slowly turning a deep gold as the sun set and their time came up.

**Oooh, maybe the seeds of romance! Or not, but I'm not telling. That would be a violation of the Author's Code, Chapter 9, Article 23, Subsection 4, Lines 52-56. **

**Please tell me you get the reference to a very popular strategy game published by Nintendo that just recently released a new game for the 3DS (which pisses me off because I don't have one).**

**If you can guess the reference, or have any criticism, tell me. I live only off of your responses, now GIVE ME THEM SO I CAN SUCK THEM DRY LIKE THE ATTENTION-VAMPIRE I AM!**


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